Silliest Things Republican Contenders Are Saying This Week

Rand Paul: “You and I shouldn’t leave this next generation of leaders to be brainwashed by America-hating socialists and Marxists.” Mr. Paul was referring to American colleges and universities.

Jeb Bush: “ISIS didn’t exist when my brother was president. Al Qaeda in Iraq was wiped out when my brother was president.” As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker pointed out, this is not true.

Chris Christie: One is that if President Obama had retaliated against Syria’s President Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons early in the civil war, the United States could have deposed him. Only a politician who thinks the known world ends at the entrance ramps to the George Washington Bridge could come up with that one.

Marco Rubio: “We’ve reached the point in our society where if you do not support same-sex marriage you are labeled a homophobe and a hater.”

NYT: Last week, Gov. Scott Walker was on a radio talk show, praising a law he signed requiring women who want an abortion to undergo an ultrasound. Which they’re supposed to watch, while the physician points out the features of the fetus.

NYT: Jeb Bush on scientists: “And for the people to say the science is decided on, this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you,” said Bush. “It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t have a conversation about it even.”

NYT: In an interview with The Des Moines Register, Donald Trump said that though he would not say for sure whether he was running for president, he did know some things. Like: “I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far. Nobody’s ever been more successful than me” and “I have a Gucci store that’s worth more than” Mitt Romney.

NYT: During a Senate meeting on gun control, Lindsey Graham wondered what an assault rifle ban would mean “in an environment where the law and order has broken down, whether it’s a hurricane, national disaster, earthquake, terrorist attack, cyberattack where the power goes down and the dam’s broken and chemicals have been released into the air and law enforcement is really not able to respond and people take advantage of that lawless environment.”